It’s 2 in the morning and I’m home alone, falling down an online rabbit hole. On my phone is the Instagram profile of a new man I’m dating, and I’m forensically reviewing it for evidence of his past love life.
There are vacation photos, party photos, weekend getaway photos. And in all of them, I look for “her”, the one in front of me… and the ones before that. My thumb hovers over each one, making sure I don’t inadvertently hit the “Like” button that would alert him to my late-night spying.
When I was younger and people were less cautious about what they shared online, there were years of these images to torture myself with, my new boyfriend smiling with his arm around another woman.
Now that I’m 30 and most of us have somewhat grasped the wisdom of documenting every moment of our lives on social media, I have to dig deeper for evidence of my past girlfriends. They could be within a group shot or cropped in the distance: who is the one riding a bike in front of him? – but they will still be there.
Lucy Holden talks to a psychoanalyst about what could be behind her obsessive Instagram scrolling to meet her new man’s exes.
Armie Hammer, left, and Lily James in the film Rebecca. The term Rebecca Syndrome is derived from the 1938 novel by Daphne du Maurier on which the film is based.
Lily James as Mrs. de Winter in the film Rebecca, which tells the story of a woman who marries a widower but discovers that her new home is haunted by the memory of his dead wife.
I’m rational enough (even when I do something so irrational) to know that comparing myself to ex-girlfriends is completely pointless. But when you know next to nothing about their exes, it’s natural to wonder what’s left unsaid.
Was the previous ‘me’ a Heidi Klum type who had founded her own charity and ran ultramarathons for fun? Maybe she was a philanthropic doctor who had no problem drinking only on weekends.
Whoever she was, or rather they, I can’t help but imagine that everything will be more impressive than what I have to offer. So I turn to social media for concrete evidence that I hope will somehow validate me.
Now this habit has a catchy new name: Rebecca syndrome.
Also known as retroactive jealousy, the term comes from Daphne du Maurier’s 1938 novel, in which a young woman marries a widower but soon discovers that her new home is haunted by the memory of his late wife, Rebecca. The second Mrs. de Winter becomes obsessed with the persistent presence of her predecessor.
How much worse it is now, in the age of social media. Nowadays, all a new lover and her ex need are public Instagram accounts so there is a wealth of information available. And once you find her account, it’s impossible not to compare yourself to her.
Psychoanalyst Toby Ingham has written a book about the phenomenon: Retroactive Jealousy, How to Understand It. He says: ‘Why would anyone like to think that their partner has had previous partners?
“Rebecca syndrome is an obsessive problem and I believe it is caused by attachment issues that are older than the current romantic relationship and are coming back to life.”
That made me think. I’m pretty sure my feelings of doubt in relationships come from the fact that I don’t expect any of them to last. But why? I have had many relationships, but I have left them as many times as they have left me.
Possibly it’s because I don’t know what I want, so I’m looking for an excuse to cancel it. Or maybe my attachment issues are related to the fact that we moved when I was very young and I got used to people I liked being left behind. Better to go first, huh?
The film Rebecca, starring Armie Hammer and Lily James, tells the story of how a young woman becomes obsessed with the persistent presence of her husband’s first wife.
Obsessive scrolling to meet a new man’s exes may be due to attachment issues from a person’s past coming back to life in the present.
But there might be more recent explanations for my “retroactive jealousy.” When I was 26, I was dating a married man who said he was separating from his wife and told me he had already moved out of the family home. That turned out to be a lie, and part of me still wonders why I didn’t try harder to find out. Why didn’t I do my homework online?
Maybe his (still) wife feels the same, because not long ago I woke up to find that she had requested to follow me on Instagram, presumably a dreaded slip while on my profile very late at night, because when I checked the account, the request It had already been cancelled. Cringe. But it could happen to any of us.
The problem is that you can’t win, no matter what you find. I once found explicit photos from a previous relationship on a boyfriend’s computer, and what I remember that made me feel so bad at first was that the girl wasn’t enormously attractive. If she had been much more attractive than me, I would have felt horrible, so why did the fact that she was less attractive make me feel horrible too? Maybe it’s a sign that I’m not that attractive either?
Rebecca syndrome damages a new relationship in many subtle ways. Vacation photos are a particular low point; You know you won’t want to go to Malta or the Amalfi Coast if you’ve already had a great time there. Then you realize you’re watching a wedding you attended together in 2017 and you suddenly feel pretty sick. Did you ever think you were going to get married? Did you wish it were like that?
I know this digital detective work may seem extreme. But for those of us who have lived a considerable portion of our lives online, it’s normal, not to mention much less tense than subjecting your new boyfriend to a verbal interrogation about his past loves.
No matter how common Rebecca syndrome is, it’s still unhealthy, Ingham insists.
“We never see the kind of emotional insecurity that goes into dating, and that, of course, is completely exacerbated by modern technology where we can see what our partner ‘likes’ on social media, or if they’re still friends.” from an ex
“Before they know it, people with obsessive problems become trapped in an introspective loop.”
“Cyberbullying is the worst,” agrees my friend Lottie, 34. “Not only does it make you feel like a psychopath, it ruins the beginning of any relationship.”
‘I don’t feel jealous, so why can’t I resist looking at someone’s past online?’ Even my sister, who has already had a baby and is married, she does it.
Another friend takes a more extreme view: “If men weren’t so untrustworthy, then we wouldn’t be pressured to try to do due diligence,” she says.
‘There’s nothing worse than being surprised by a “I’m back with my ex” talk. And if someone’s Instagram is full of recent photos of them together, that’s a big red flag for me.”
Of course, I’ve dated enough jealous men to know that cyberbullying is also a male problem, and it can easily turn into something much more toxic. I’ve had controlling boyfriends hack my email, steal my phone, and make me go over entire relationship stories to “make them feel better” (which never happens, of course).
Adding fuel to the fire is the fact that we tend to document only our best moments on social media, creating an enviable version of a relationship that, in reality, may be far from perfect.
At the end of Du Maurier’s novel, the illusions collapse. We discovered that the glamorous and captivating Rebecca was actually horrible. Malevolent, “wicked” and adulterous, she died pregnant with another man’s child.
It’s an outcome I’ll try to remember the next time I find myself looking at a man’s love posts with his ex. After all, they broke up, right?
